


Boxes and Bridges

by Eve_Levine



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Angst, Canon Typical Sexuality, Canon Typical Violence, Deep inside their thoughts and feelings, Episode Tag S3x12 June Wedding, High-School Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Mending a broken couple, filling in the blanks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24836713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eve_Levine/pseuds/Eve_Levine
Summary: Jax kneels in front of her, and Tara's not sure how to do this. How to mend what's broken between them. She lets her fingers walk over his injuries, fussing with the details."I'm so sorry," Jax breathes against her neck. Tara pulls back a little to look at him."For what?" She asks, and he almost smiles."Everything."
Relationships: Tara Knowles/Jax Teller
Comments: 16
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I thought Jax and Tara made a lot of emotional and philosophical decisions at the end of Season 3 that were glossed over in favor of plot twists and capers. Loved the twists, but couldn't help feeling cheated by all the missing scenes I waited half a season to watch. This story is supposed to fill in the for Jax and Tara between the scenes in June Wedding and NS
> 
> I started this story years ago, and originally posted it on ff.net.

TARA

  
The trunk Salazar threw her into is hot. The air is heavy and stale, and each breath is a chore. Her thirst is overwhelming, splitting her lips and swelling her tongue. Her thirst is her greatest adversary, but the smell is bad too. In the crushing heat, Luisa’s blood spoiled and dried, leaving Tara’s clothes rank and stiff. The gag tastes like motor oil and the decaying blood. It reminds her of the shop, which makes her think of Jax. Her hands and feet lost feeling ages ago and she’s lying on the ribs Salazar kicked. Sometimes Salazar stops the car to beat on the lid of the trunk, and she knows eventually he’ll start beating her. And when he stops beating her, well… there are so many ways to die.

Her head feels like it’s doubled in size, and as her heartbeat kicks at her temples, her thoughts stretch and distort, as if seen through a fun-house mirror.

Tara thinks about the Prospect Kip. How he rushed into Cameron’s knife trying to save Abel, gurgling as he died, and how she whimpered for Cameron to wait and somehow take back the plunge of his weapon. Her medical training failed her as she watched Kip’s eyes empty and his spark was extinguished. Days later, with bleach fumes burning her nose, she sobbed while she tried to scrub Kip off of Jax’s kitchen floor. It turns out Crime Scene Units don’t so much clean up murder sites, as swab and sample them.

She remembers her first clean up, when she was picking pieces of Kohn’s brain out of her carpet. How she knew she was cracking up, when she found herself comparing the different lumps, and wondering what facet of Joshua she was holding. Was this the part of him that brought her roses on their second date, or was it the part that climbed through her bedroom window and busted her lip because she smiled at another man?

Jax was there the first time to prop her up when the surging hysteria overcame her, but in the kitchen she was alone. Jax was face down in the nursery, inconsolable, catatonic, and drunk. When his eyes could focus on her, it was betrayal she saw there, betrayal for Abel.

Abel’s little self fills the darkness of the trunk. She envisions both the first time she saw him, when he was tiny and broken, and the last time crying in Cameron’s arms. Tara loves that she was the first person to ever hold Abel, and she loves that she’s seen his heart. She helped fix him with her careful hands, back before she loved him, and she remembers he coded during the surgery. In that urgent moment her concern had been for Jax, but now Tara know _she_ wouldn’t survive if Abel’s fragile heart stopped beating again.

The new baby whispers along her insides, accusing her of forsaking it a few short days ago. Tara believes in choices, and she knows all choices have consequences, some of them devastating. Every aching moment is a consequence of failing Abel. She thought she had no right to be a mother. She didn’t realize the fierceness of her attachment to this new life until it was in danger. She feels like she could spring claws and shred any person trying to harm it. After he’s dead and his body is cooling, because mercy got her nowhere but in this damn trunk, Tara will thank Salazar for interrupting her life at a critical moment and helping her find her claws. 

That is, if she survives.

Tara knows her hands are soaked in blood. The abstract, controlled kind flowing through the patients she heals, and the desperate, spattering kind pumping out of the people she loves, and the people she’s helped to end. 

In the searing blackness, when she is no longer lucid, it seems like the blood is pressing on her skin, looking for cracks, seeking entrance.


	2. Chapter 2

  
JAX

Everything fucking hurts. Salazar is dead and an EMT is checking Jax’s pupils while the cops ask their questions. They’ve already taken his sweatshirt for evidence, and he’s flat out refused to put on the neck brace they want him to wear. They are stitching and wrapping the stupid slice on his arm, his alibi for the police and for the club, because there was no way Salazar was walking out of the building. The Mayans have left, but SAMCRO is still there, hovering. Clay, Chibs, and Bobby are right behind the line of cops, and the look Clay’s giving him is intense. Jax can’t decide if he looks proud or pissed. 

Maybe Clay can’t decide either.

Tara’s in a different ambulance with her own circle of officers, being watched over by Opie, Kozik, and Tig. They won’t let him see her yet, making Jax feel less than cooperative.

“Look, Man,” Jax insists, feeling the panic rolling off of him. “That fucker did God knows what to her. There’s blood all over her stomach and thighs.”

The cops stare at him, unimpressed. 

“She’s pregnant! He had her for days! I just need to know if everything’s okay.” They try to placate him and insist she must be fine since the ambulance didn’t race away to the hospital, but Jax isn’t having that. He takes his arm back from the EMT and folds them both across his chest, leaning back against the side of the ambulance.

“I’m not talking until somebody finds out if my girl’s okay.” 

One cop, who seems smarter than the rest, rolls his eyes and radioes to get her status. The team working on Tara says she’s badly dehydrated and hasn’t eaten in a couple of days, but they confirm that the blood isn’t hers or their baby’s. Jax clenches his fists and breathes out a big breath, before scrubbing his hands over his face. 

“Was that so fucking hard?” He asks them.

“Alright Teller, you got your answers,” the smart cop replies. “Now give your arm back to the nice man, so they can finish your stitches, and we can get our answers.” 

Jax gives the cops the story they want, the one he has to spin to avoid charges. He leaves out a lot of the details. They don’t need to know that Jax recently took a special interest in humiliating Salazar, repeatedly kicking the little bitch’s pride. They don’t need to know how his vision narrowed down to the hand holding a blade over Tara’s jumping pulse. Jax could tell how scared she was. Her breath came out in short panicked bursts, but she was brave. His girl met Salazar’s eyes and didn’t cower, nor did she beg. They don’t need to know he was pissed about the caretaker, but he’s beyond proud of Tara for taking out Salazar’s girl with surgical precision. They certainly don’t need to know that Jax, seeing the trapped, scurrying truth of Salazar, disarmed the rodent by offering him a path through the maze. He admits to stabbing Salazar, but doesn’t confess to its intimacy, with Jax pulling him in close, faces inches apart, as he relished Salazar’s shock.

Recounting the story, Jax can feel the vibrating rage rebuilding in his chest. It courses down his limbs and his fingertips won’t stay still. Chibs must be paying close attention, because he tosses Jax his smokes and lighter over the heads of the cops. Jax lights one and salutes Chibs with it. 

Under the rage, something different is thrumming through his system, making him shake. He tells himself it is leftover adrenaline, but it has the clammy stink of fear to it. This time was too close. He was almost too late. That knife’s edge he walks in life between victory and tragedy got thinner and sharper. Half his family could have been erased with one flick of Salazar’s wrist. 

He needs to go to Tara. He needs this interview to be over.

TARA

Tara’s hands have almost stopped shaking. She stares at them fascinated by the involuntary reaction. She’s hooked up to an IV and is on her second bottle of water. She’s no longer overheated, and every passing second, since being pulled from the trunk, since seeing Jax come into the room where she was held, since being led to safety, finds the liquid and mercurial spread of her mind solidifying until she feels like she recognizes herself.

She hears an officer’s radio go off. The man on the other end needs Teller to calm down and give his statement. The man asks if Knowles is injured or has miscarried.

_He knows._

Opie walks up, behind the cops at the edge of the ambulance, with Kozik and Tig. Tara’s chest tightens. She locks eyes with him and mouths one word, a question.

“Abel?”

Opie’s sad face lifts at its corners, his eyes crinkling, and he nods. Her relief is so great it feels something like pain, but it’s sweet, and Tara swipes at her tears. She looks back at Opie, who’s still smiling, and feels a sudden tenderness for her old friend, who lied to her that morning at the clubhouse, to spare her a measure of heartbreak. And who went with Jax, where she wasn’t allowed, and helped bring Abel home. 

She almost cries again when Tig brings her a giant chicken sandwich.

“You better eat all of that Doc, or you’ll be answering to me!” Tig hollers and Tara feels herself grinning at him instead. Tara inhales the food, growing hungrier as she eats.

There’s always one cop who wants to dig. Who finds it _convenient_ how often she’s involved. Who’s looking for loopholes in her story that he can tug and unravel. This one isn’t from Charming P.D. and the guys are getting impatient with the detective, shifting and muttering as they smoke. Tara appreciates their concern, she really does, but she’s got this. She is the obvious victim and she can handle the detective’s trickier questions. Though no amount of dueling with the officer can stop the question itching at the back of Tara’s thoughts. Why did she kill one captor in self-defense and then allow the bigger, angrier one to live when he dropped his gun in the bathroom.

_Why didn’t she kill him?_

The interview ends as her IV is being removed. The radio squawks to say that Teller is on his way. Tara searches for him and finds Jax moving towards her. He’s not quite limping, but she can tell he’s in pain. She knows he’s wronged her, and he has to answer for that, but their history is long and tightly woven. It’s impossible for Tara, in this moment, to separate the strand of his recent cruelties from the rest of Jax she’s known since her first day of school. As her pulse speeds up, a handful of memories from when they were kids, long before they were a couple, push against her while she watches him.

They’re in second grade and Jax likes to tug on her braids during recess. It’s getting old and she’s growing impatient with his teasing. When she tells him to buzz off, he announces to every kid by the swings that Tara is his girlfriend. Before she can blush, Jax punches her hard in the shoulder and takes off across the school yard. She chases him, hollering her head off, while he laughs. Her longer legs catch up with him, because at eight years old she’s the taller one, and she tackles him to the ground. Jax grins up at her, looking pleased to be caught. Tara grins back, deciding she likes his untidy blond hair, and then she slugs him right in the chest.

The year after her mother dies is fifth grade, when she’s grown quiet and forgotten by her friends, and there’s nobody at home to braid her hair. When her father begins disappearing into himself, and drinking until he is mute. When objects become talismans for him, when he can’t throw anything away, and her mother’s earrings stay untouched on their bathroom sink. This year, like the year before, she visits the school counselor every Wednesday.

On one of these days, Jax is hauled in by an angry teacher, and sat in the chair next to her. He’s there to see the principal for lighting firecrackers in a trash barrel on school property. 

“They’re not even mine,” Jax whispers to her, but he won’t spill the name of the owner. He looks down at his hands, his face drawn, and she remembers hearing he’d lost his little brother. 

Tara doesn’t know what to say, so she digs into her backpack and offers him half of her granola bar. He smiles as he takes it, which is her goal, and produces a handful of firecrackers and a lighter from his front pocket. 

“Hey, can you take these and meet me after school?” Jax asks urgently.

Tara, her eyes wide, stuffs the contraband into her backpack and shoves it as far under her chair as it will go. Later she sets off the firecrackers with Jax and Opie Winston, who is the supplier. Tara loves the loud booms, and makes a plan to meet up with them after dark to set off Opie’s really big fireworks. She’s late getting home, late waking up her dad, and late heating up his dinner. He’s sullen with her before his night shift at the mill, but this day Tara is too excited to care.

Jax’s father is hit by a semi when they are freshman in high school. John Teller’s funeral is legendary. It goes on for a week, clogging their small town with bikers. Tara sits next to Jax in Geometry and every day he lays his head down on his arms. The teacher, who made it clear that was not allowed in her classroom, never says a word to him.

Tara is leery of boys and their grief. She knows from home that hugging an upset man without permission can cause him to stiffen, grow chilly, and send her to her room, where she can cry by herself. So she doesn’t pry with Jax. She doesn’t try to console him, or try to get him to open up the way the other girls do. Tara leaves him alone, but most days she slips him a copy of her math homework before school.

Sophomore year is when Jax rediscovers his smile and the first time she gets high with him in Oswald’s woods. He has the best weed. It’s stronger than anything she’s ever smoked. He and Opie are staring at her and grinning at her dazed expression.

“Can you feel it yet?” Opie asks as he passes the joint to Jax.

“Oh yeah, I can feel it,” Tara nods slowly, sitting down on the forest floor. “I’m also really feeling the vibe of these trees.” Tara holds her palms up into the pockets of sunshine that’s dappling through the trees. “They make my hands glow.”

Jax snorts and chokes, trying to hold in his smoke, as Opie’s laughter booms around them. Tara howls her own laughter up to the tree tops, and while she’s not entirely certain why she’s laughing, it feels so good. It’s so different from the crowded, loaded silence of her house, where she bumps into everything, and wants to tear through the place, destroying every object, every memento, until her father has to look at her.

Later, Opie wanders off to piss, and Jax slides his fingers into her belt loops, pulling her closer.

“When are you going to date me, Knowles?” He wheedles, and Tara sighs because this isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation.

Tara loses focus when she’s this close to him, but she manages to back up and put a little space between them. “Maybe when you ditch your five other girlfriends,” is her pert reply.

Jax’s mouth twitches in amusement, and she sees the impulse in the raise of his eyebrows, a second before he swoops closer and whispers in her ear, “Aww c’mon. You know those other girls don’t mean anything.” He bites down softly on her earlobe and desire shoots through her. Tara thinks he’s throwing her a line, empty flattery, but it’s so hard to resist his charms, when he’s kissing them down her neck. She uncurls her arms from around his shoulders.

_How did those get there?_

Tara puts her hand on his chest and she steps back from his lips and his irrepressible confidence, so her head won’t feel so fuzzy. 

“I’m serious,” she underlines again. “I’m not competing with other girls for your attention. It’s just you and me, or we’re not gonna happen.” 

Jax licks his lips as he thinks over what she’s said, but it must not be the right step in this dance they’ve been performing with each other, because he winks at her, and then lets her go.

And suddenly Tara’s back in the abulance, and Jax is standing in front of her. This Jax is older, harder, and haunted. He climbs into the ambulance with her and the doors close, leaving them alone in the back. Jax kneels so they are face to face, and Tara’s not sure how to do this, how to mend what’s broken. She let’s her fingers wander over his injuries, fussing with the details. Jax cradles her chin, searching her face, and dipping his own chin down until she meets his eyes. She finds him tentative, looking for rejection, and this gap between them, that can’t be measured in inches, makes her throat tighten and burn.

It’s his hesitation, that flinch in his eyes, that gets her, spurs her to leap first. Tara wraps her arms around him, her hands searching for purchase on the smooth leather of his cut. Jax responds, pulling her tightly into his chest.

“Are you okay, Babe?” He murmurs and Tara nods against his shoulder.

“Where is he?” She asks, and Jax puts his mouth to her ear, barely speaking.

“He’s with my mom at her house. Nobody knows she’s back,”

“Is he-” Tara starts.

“He’s perfect,” Jax assures her, and something hard and clenched inside Tara blows out of her body with a sigh.

“I’m so sorry,” Jax breathes against her neck. Tara pulls back a little to look at him.

“For what?” She asks, and he almost smiles.

“Everything.”

“Me too,” Tara says.

Jax places a careful, questioning kiss on her lips. She gives him his answer, by pulling him closer, until he settles between her knees. His hands dive into her hair, clutching it in his fists, tilting her head and deepening the kiss. When they break apart, his fingers find hers, bringing them up to brush her knuckles gently against his mouth. He leans his head against hers and closes his eyes.

“Never again, Tara. Never again,” Jax says like a promise, like an oath, but so much has gone wrong, she’s not sure what he’s swearing to. For now, that’s okay. Abel is home, Jax is home, and she and the new baby are safe. Her hands are entwined with his, their foreheads pressed together, and Tara feels like the world, which has been tipped on its side for so long, is back to spinning on the right axis.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote this chapter years ago, between the airing of season 3 and season 4. There's definitely a passage or 2 in here that are depressing, given how the show shook out in its later seasons, but I'm sticking with it, because I still think it's believable for Jax's mindset at the end of season 3.

JAX

Up close Tara looks like she's been through hell. Her hair is dirty, her face is pale, and deep shadows circle her eyes. The bloody clothes are gone, probably packed into an evidence bag, and they've put her in a pair of scrubs big enough to fit Opie. Her hands are icy cold, the way they get when she's stressed, and after he kisses them he notices angry red ligature marks on her wrists from being tied up for days. He rubs her hands and wrists gently, soothing them and trying to increase the blood flow.

The driver and his partner have climbed in the front and they are making their way to St. Thomas. The sirens and lights are turned off, but it doesn't feel like the driver is obeying the speed limit. Even in the scrubs, under the medicinal scent of the ambulance, Tara smells faintly like old blood and dead body. It’s a sweet gagging stink he wishes was unfamiliar to him. It always sticks in his nose until he climbs into the shower to wash the smell, and the rest of the night, off of his body. He loathes that the odor is now clinging to his girl. That she endured this situation. The fucking weasel should have hit the ground, with a hole in his head, at the Mayan bike race.

"Who had him?" Tara whispers. It's such a simple question with a very complicated answer. Jax flicks his eyes towards the front of the ambulance. He and Tara have their furtive lips pressed to each other’s ears but he can't be too careful. He gives a quick rundown of the people who had Abel during his abduction, leaving out the illegal parts. He feels her body shift and slightly pull away, and he can tell that she knows he's editing the story. When Jax gets to the part where Ashby put Abel in an orphanage, and misdirected the fuck out of SAMCRO, until he was adopted for a short time, Tara gasps and squeezes him tighter. Her breath in his ear is ragged, her chest quivering the way it does when she's trying to contain big emotions.

"Who does that? What kind of priest would do that?" Her voice is rising and the EMT riding shotgun glances back at them. Jax strokes her hair and makes shushing noises while he holds her. "We're not dead Jax. Why would he keep Abel from us?"

"Later babe. It's a long fucked up story." Jax says as he catches her wording, the _we_ in reference to Abel. He knows she’s really upset, because Tara is more cautious of boundaries than this, especially if she's been smacked down for crossing them before. And the last time she'd claimed Abel as _hers,_ he'd nearly lost his fucking mind, because how dare she invite herself into his nightmare. How dare she tie herself to his sinking ship. He wanted more for her than this. The ugly fight in his grandfather's basement crowds into his head, and he can hear the echoes of every shitty thing he yelled at her. He can also see her stunned and wounded look.

Tara's no doormat. She can brawl if pushed too far, and after an age of being sweet and careful, she can erupt like Mount St. Helens and lay waste to whatever is in her path. Even still, Jax knows he's more cutthroat than her. She's quicker to apologize and he's quicker to go for the kill shot. He remembers his boiling frustration with her that day, and how he began to look at her as an opponent, as if she was somebody to war with him. He was seeking out her weak spots and jabbing them hard.

Seen through a new lens, a different set of glasses, he can't believe how furious her love for Abel made him. Of course she loves Abel. When he's not completely spun out, Tara's loyalty is one of Jax's favorite things about her. She helped save Abel's life and she's been taking care of his son, like he was her own, since he left the hospital. She's so quick to tend to Abel's every need that Jax sometimes has to gently stop her so he has the chance to care for his son too. He's not sure why he expected that to change after Cameron held her at gunpoint and stole Abel from her.

He pulls back so he can see her face and her horror at Ashby's plan is spilling out of her eyes. An uncomfortable truth settles over Jax. He can never tell her he almost left Abel with the Petrie's. No question, she would never forgive him, and she would never fully trust him to make decisions about any of their babies. His hands drift down her sides and one of them rests on her lower belly. It doesn't really feel any different to his fingers, but the gesture does something painful to the inside of his chest.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asks, and he wishes he could have squashed the little catch he hears in his voice.

"There was never a good time. I wanted you to focus. Not be distracted, and…" She trails off for a moment before shaking her head. "… You could barely look at me."

He wants to deny that, to tell her it's bullshit and make her feel better, but she's right and there are so many things he has to lie to her about right now. He really doesn't want to add one more, and regardless, she wouldn't believe him if he tried.

"Well I'm looking now," Jax says, and Tara gives him a smile that's a little sad around the edges. He kisses her softly trying to chase the sadness away.

He realizes this moment, this time in the ambulance, with the span of his hands across the potential of their child, that aside from a few hard goodbye kisses, this is the first time he's really touched Tara since Abel was taken. There were moments when he allowed her to touch him, to kiss him, wrap her arms around him, but it wasn't returned, not really. If he threw an arm around her it was just a habit or because she expected it. Jax didn't let himself feel it. He cut off the blood flow to the parts of him that loved Tara. He deadened that flesh.

He tried to cleave her from him, break them in two, because he couldn't stand to have her close and suffer the consequences of his life. He thought he could handle losing her, Thought it would be better to let her find a different man to love her, touch her, protect her, fuck her, if it meant he would never have to kneel in the street and kiss her shattered and bloodied face. He wouldn't survive what happened to Donna and Opie… or Luanne and Otto. But leaving her didn't help, it just left her unprotected.

The feelings for her he's kept so distant and separate from the rest of him have woken up. Holding her, having her in his arms creates a warm surging feeling. But there's fallout for being so numb, for being a good battle hardened Son and a bad partner. Like a limb, slept on and lifeless, the blood's flowing in, making connections, and as the feeling grows, the rush of pins and needles assaulting him is overwhelming.


	4. Chapter 4

JAX

A hospital technician leads Jax into a room labeled Imaging, and directs Jax to lay down on the table inside the CT scanner. Jax lays down and drums his fingers against his thighs. His head hurts, and he promised Tara he would get the scan for her peace of mind, but there are other things going on that feel more urgent. The CT scanner looks like a space donut, but its better than an MRI, quicker and less claustrophobic. Jax doesn't like confined spaces, doesn't like cages, and doesn't want to sit in one for the next few years.

He really needs to check in with Stahl. Jax didn't get the full story from Unser, but he knows Agent Tyler was killed when everything went down with Salazar. Tyler was her girlfriend and Jax needs to make sure Stahl's head is still in the game, that she's focusing on their deal. He doesn't know what he'll do if all of his careful planning falls apart because Stahl's a grieving mess, but he's pretty sure that won't happen. She's one cold bitch.

“Hey, you’re moving too much,” the technician tells him through an intercom. “You’re messing up the scan. All the images of your brain are blurry.”

Jax doesn't feel like he's moving. He wonders for a moment if this dude is fucking with him, but Jax also knows that of all the items on the long and sordid list of things he does well, sitting still is not one of them.

“Hey man, just relax, close your eyes, and think of something nice.”

Jax snorts and shuts his eyes. He tries for nice but the images that pop up are vivid and soaked in blood. Ireland comes roaring back: Ashby getting in the car with Jimmy, Paddy Telford dead on the ground, his arm laying six feet away from him and four more Sons blown to shit, Clay pushing McGee off of the roof, and O'Neil squealing with his stomach peeled open and Jax pulling the trigger.

The intercom goes off again. “Okay, you’re still wiggling," the technician announces, and Jax lifts up on his elbows to glare at the guy through his little observation window. The technician shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you. The images I’m getting are blurry. I mean, I could give you the sedative we use on children to keep them still.”

Jax is now sure the guy is fucking with him.

“Actually, hang on,” the guy says tapping a series of buttons. “The problem may be my machine. Give me just a moment.”

Jax sighs and lays back down. His fingers flex with the urge to go punch this punk, but they're going to be done cleaning Tara up soon and he wants to be there for the sonogram. If the baby isn't okay, which it will be or he's going to burn the Calaveras' clubhouse to the ground tonight, Tara's going to need him. Jax closes his eyes again and tries to cooperate.

Trinity passes through his mind. He likes Trinity. She's pretty and genuine, and he felt an immediate connection with her. He wishes he would have understood that connection a little better before things got out of hand. He joked about it, made Trinity and his mother laugh to smooth the situation, because it's either take it lightly or blow the back of his head off. And they didn't get far enough to warrant eating his gun.

Jax feels a mortified smile creeping up on him, and he wants nothing more than to put his hands over his face and die a little bit. Holding still has never sucked this much, and if that fucker doesn’t hurry this fucking scan up, somebody is losing a finger. Jax swore Gemma to secrecy, and as long as Tara and the guys don't find out, it's not the end of the world. He wants to get past it and get to know her better. Still though, he could have gone his whole life, _the whole fucking thing_ , without knowing what his baby sister's tits felt like.

It's like karma wanted to curb stomp his ass. He really wasn't looking for anything beyond a conversation with a decent person, after all of the death. Trinity took him off guard when she kissed him, but then again he's never been that great at saying no to what's offered. He doesn't think the universe could have screamed any louder, if it was trying to tell him to stop fucking every woman he kind of digs. _Come on Jax_ , he says to himself, _think of something nice_.

The first time he has sex is the summer after his dad dies. She's a young crow eater named Jessica, and based on how it goes down, he's pretty sure Clay set the entire thing up. Maybe Clay's helping Jax get through the grief and out of his funk, or maybe he's distracting Jax from the move he's making on Gemma. Either way, it works. The girl has a wicked smile and legs that can squeeze the breath out of him. He knows she's too young to buy liquor, but old enough that his mom will probably beat somebody's ass if she finds out about them, so it stays between Jax and Clay.

For a few weeks Jess treats him like a personal project. She lets him wander her body, teaches him how to put on a condom, and she does ridiculous shit with her mouth that makes every one of his previous experiences feel like after school fumbles. One day, she pins him down with her knees on his shoulders and flashes him that smile that means she’s about to give him another lesson.

“I’m going to do your dick the biggest favor. You’re going to be thanking me for years.” She announces, and shifts her hips closer to his face. “With your looks Jax, you can get any girl you want in bed once. But the key to getting them in bed twice, is by not being a lousy, selfish lay.” Then she shifts even closer and shows him exactly how to make her come.

Jess isn't his girlfriend, what they have isn't special, and he's happy for her when she hooks up with a patched member from Vegas and moves out of town. He does want to thank her though. She's whet his appetite, armed him with knowledge, and blown open a door for him into a new realm of possibilities with girls.

Sophomore year Jax cuts a swath through Charming High School. Girls are so easy for him to understand and subtly manipulate. He loves it, loves the game of it, knows just how much to flatter, tease, goad and reassure them into doing what he wants. And what he wants is to get into their pants. Unlike Opie, whose hook ups are always turning into girlfriends, Jax keeps it casual. He has a knack for getting an uncomplicated fuck out of somebody, and making them think it was their idea to have a fling with him. He makes them feel impulsive and daring, and afterwards they'll exchange conspiratorial grins from across the hallway, pleased to have a secret.

Jesus Christ, but that shit does not work on Tara.

He can't remember a time when he didn't know her. He always thought she was pretty, even back when pretty girls made Jax want to pester them until they were screaming mad. Sometimes they hung out after school, and she was really fucking sweet to him when his dad died, but it isn't until the start of sophomore year that they go from being friendly, to being friends.

Tara doesn't have a crowd. She sort of floats between groups, trying on new hats. She makes great grades and she’s buddies with Hale, who is so uptight, but she's also the girl who brings a pilfered fifth of her father's whiskey to every party. Jax likes how smart Tara is, how he never loses her in a conversation, and how her ass looks in her favorite pair of jeans. She's a good girl, who smokes pot sometimes, and who knocked the living shit out of a junior girl for having an opinion about Tara’s crazy old man. Jax wants to see where the good girl ends, and the rest of Tara begins.

He pursues her, throws his best game at her, and she never responds the way he expects. Tara doesn't giggle when he compliments her, she narrows her eyes and grows suspicious. And when he tries to goad her into doing something, and make her think it's her idea, Tara cuts right through his crap and asks, "What do you want from me Jax?"

It's unsettling the way she can puncture his ego with an exasperated sigh, but Jax decides he likes the challenge.

Tara doesn't always win their battle of wills. Jax can tell she likes him. There are flashes of it in her eyes, and in the way she blushes when he slips his arm around her waist to walk her to class. Sometimes if he plays it just right, she'll make out with him, but she always puts on the brakes before things get interesting. Jax doesn't sweat it too much. There are plenty of other girls who don't put on the brakes and he'll just have to come at Tara from a different angle.

Jax finds a better angle when he tries, of all things, being honest with her. He drops the game that has landed him between the thighs of so many of their classmates, and instead hands her a few pieces of himself he usually keeps private. Tara, in turn, offers him small glimpses inside her head, and Jax wants as much of her as he can get, but somehow she remains elusive and out of his grasp. Jax realizes that Tara has built a giant barrier around herself, because she doesn't trust anyone. It's why she doesn't have any close friends, and it's probably because her family is fucked up. Her mother's death left her old man a drunken shell, who ignores Tara’s very existence, which Jax can't fathom because the deaths in his family turned his mom into an overprotective mountain lion.

Still, he learns that Tara thinks Charming is too small for her. He learns that her hair smells like apples, the skin on her lower back is the softest he's ever touched, and if he runs his fingers up her spine she shivers. If he sucks on the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, she'll shove him away because she likes it too much and it makes her resolve against him weaken.

Then one night, while they are both drunk at a bonfire, when Jax can't take the mystery one second longer, he flat out asks her what kind of underwear she wears. Tara's mouth pops open in surprise and then her eyebrows raise as she hands him her cup.

"Quit being such a whore Teller. Dump the rest of them," she says with a smile, before slowly unbuttoning her jeans and flashing him one perfect hip covered in pale pink cotton panties. Her smile turns impish when he lunges at her, and she takes off running before he can scoop her up and carry her into the woods.

Though Tara's said it before, Jax listens to her this time when she tells him the way to get in her pants, to get inside that barrier she's built between her and the world, is to cut out the shit with all the other girls. He goes from chasing half the school to just chasing her and it changes everything. Tara pulls him closer when he sucks on her neck. She pounces on him while he's in mid sentence, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and demanding urgent kisses.

They spend long mellow afternoons passing a joint back and forth, talking about everything. He trades her his favorite William S. Burroughs novel, for her favorite Margaret Atwood. They spill out the good and the ugly about their parents, both the living and the dead. He tells her about Thomas and his bad heart. She tells him that her mother was a painter. He learns that Tara has huge dreams, but she's pretty sure her life is going to be disappointing, and while she's cautious about almost every little thing in her daily life, she can be fearless about the big stuff, like when she later gets a tattoo marking her as his forever.

Jax is so busy trying to get Tara to let him in, that it takes him awhile to realize he's let her in. That the crazy spinning feeling, the stupid smile he wakes up with, and the tugging need to have her always pulled tight against his side, means he's fallen in love with her.

Combing through his thoughts about Tara, Jax stays still while the machine is fixed and his scan is completed. When the technician is done with him, he leads Jax to the neo-natal waiting room and tells him Tara will be ready in a few minutes.

Jesus, did they really have to bring him to the room where he broke up with her? He bounces his legs and pulls out a smoke. He knows he can't light it, but holding the cigarette between his fingers eases a little of his jittery energy.

He doesn't want to think about that night, the things he said, the shit he did, the look on her face the next morning, her tiny heartbroken intake of breath when he kissed her goodbye. Nope. Not doing it. Not fucking thinking about it. He didn't know she was pregnant. He thought he was doing the right thing. He’s not gonna crucify himself about this. The careful numbing and severing of his ties to her didn't hold through that night, when he was drowning himself in whiskey and pussy, and he felt like he'd carved great big holes in his body. God Damn it, he's not going there!

He gets up and paces the room. Grabs his phone and checks the time. They've only been at St. Thomas for a half an hour. For Jax it feels like a lifetime. Too much is going on, too many balls in the fucking air. Tomorrow is one of the most important days of his entire life. The freedom of so many people hinges on him pulling off some serious James Bond shit in the next twenty-four hours. This thing between them needs to be settled. He only has tonight with her and his son. He doesn't have time to fix it the way he wants, to make it right.

Jax sits back down and puts his hands over his face. Earning Tara's trust should be considered an Olympic event, and it's not something he takes lightly. She can, with a blink, close the shutters down tight on her eyes, and with the smallest movement hold her body as if she's bracing for a storm. He saw it that day, when he said he was done. She didn't yell, or slap his face, or plead. Tara clamped down and hid from him.

There's another memory pressing on the side of his head, wanting to be let in. This one is sweet and Jax doesn't want to look at it either. He doesn't need to. He knows every inch of this one, every nuance. He bumps his fist against his throbbing forehead, trying to keep it out, but it moves like smoke and it finds a way to filter through.

After months of build up and heavy petting in the back of her father’s cutlass, Jax takes her virginity in his room, on his bed, with his dresser pulled in front of the door, because she's worried Clay or Gemma will come home and walk in on them. He's so fucking careful with her. Takes it slow and kisses her entire body. Can feel her heart racing as it thumps against his chest, and when he pulls her legs up to wrap them around his hips, he notices that the muscles in her thighs are quivering, that she's shaking.

He brushes her hair away from her forehead and smiles down at her. “Hey, are you okay?” He whispers. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Tara smiles back and pulls him down for a kiss. “Don’t stop. I want you,” She says and takes a big trembling breath. “It’s just so new.”

Jax nods, kisses her one more time, and pushes into her.

It’s painful at first for both of them as they try to find a way for him to fit inside her. But after the pain fades, and she says she's okay, when he can move his hips, Jax begins to feel something almost indescribable. He feels as if an un-nameable part of him is filling up and spilling over. He doesn't know what to do with this feeling. He doesn’t know how to deal. It's never happened before. He's embarrassed to find this surging overflow forming into words that he is helplessly whispering into the hollow of Tara's neck.

He doesn't want to look at her. If she's laughing at him or even raising her eyebrows, he knows he’ll never allow it to happen again, not like this. But she doesn't mock him. She gently pulls him to her lips, so she can kiss him. Tara holds him there and won't let him burrow into her shoulder. All of the confessions he can't stop making are delivered against her mouth and into her eyes which are so open he feels like he can see every hidden piece of her.

Jax knows she's not leaving him. He knew it the instant she kissed him in the ambulance. She'll stay in Charming, be his old lady, and raise his kids. But the question that's circling him, nipping at him and then darting away, is will she ever look at him in the same way again?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: When I originally wrote this chapter, I got really mad, as in “Tara should leave Charming on the first plane out of there. She doesn’t deserve this nonsense.” So, my angry inner fangirl wrote this chapter, and I should apologize for the almost criminal level of angst you will below. Lol! Sorry about that. 
> 
> Trigger Warning: For Kohn being violent and controlling in canon typical ways.

TARA

Tara doesn't ask her to do it, but the nurse escorting her into staff locker room at St. Thomas opens both shower curtains, peers down every aisle and in every toilet stall, before pronouncing the room empty. The woman's face is kind and her eyes hold a little too much understanding as she looks at Tara. She sets down the shower stool she brought in with her.

"You're safe in here. If you need anything, just let us know Dr. Knowles," the nurse says putting her hand on Tara's shoulder as she's leaving.

"Thank you," Tara says, wishing furiously that she could remember this woman's name. They've worked together before. Tara knows she knows it, but it's been a long couple of weeks and Tara's not feeling her sharpest. Still, she hates when she acts like a cliché. And a doctor who can't remember the nurse's name is a big one. It’s so arrogant and so typical.

In her locker she finds the extra change of clothes she always keeps on hand and her travel bag of toiletries. Hanging on the hook, behind her clothes, she finds her purse, and she moans in relief. The last time she saw her purse was in Margaret's car before Salazar and Luisa transferred them into the attic. Tara digs to the bottom of the purse. She hears her keys jangling before her fingers close around them. Fantastic, they can take her cutlass home. She silently blesses Margaret and her tenacious, organized mind.

She tries both shower stalls, and no matter how far she turns the handles, or how long she waits with her arm under the spray, Tara can't seem to get the water hot enough. There was a time today when she thought she would never be cold again, was actually delirious from the heat. But she did cool down, and she kept cooling down until the chill feels as if it has seeped into her bones and is radiating out through her skin in a fine tremor.

She refuses to consider whether her shaking chill has anything to do with shock. She doesn’t have time to be in shock.

Tara settles on a stall, climbs in, and goes face first into the water. She leaves the shower stool the nurses insisted she use, outside of the curtain. They wouldn't let her shower unassisted without one, but those stools are for the sick and the elderly. She took it to keep them from hovering, but she doesn't feel like she needs it.

What she needs is to see Abel. She won't feel like it's all really over until she's got him in her arms, but she also needs to see the sonogram and make sure the new baby is healthy. One half of her, the half with the M.D., is pretty sure they're fine. Abel's a resilient little thing and the shot she took to the ribs was nowhere near her womb. The other half of her, the part that's stared down the business end of four different guns since she came back to Charming, still can't believe she's coming out the end of this horror story alive, with everybody she loves intact. It's almost too much to wish for and she feels herself waiting for a pendulum of consequences to swing back and knock her on her ass.

Tara pours way more shampoo than she needs into her hand. She really wants to make sure her hair comes clean. That she gets all of the attic dust, all of the trunk grime, and all of that woman off of her. Luisa was going to shoot her when she kicked open the door, Tara's sure of that. But Tara knows that's just convenient timing for her own moral compass because as she waited in the tub clutching her broken piece of mirror, she knew she was done being a good hostage. She was going to slice Luisa no matter how she opened the door.

Hopefully Jax is getting along with the medical staff. He's not the world's most agreeable patient, even at the best of times, and right now he's stretched to the snapping point. When their ambulance was met by a handful of people and two wheelchairs, Tara obeyed the hospital policy and sat down in one of them. Jax just raised his eyebrows and walked right past the other one. The nurse turned to her and gave her wide scandalized eyes. Tara shrugged back at her. Red hot pokers probably wouldn't have gotten Jax in that wheelchair and Tara was way too preoccupied to stress about little bureaucratic shit.

Once he realized they were being separated he didn't want the CT scan. He resisted the staff and refused to leave her side, but there was no way Tara was letting him skip it.

Jax was standing with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall, and the muscles in his jaw were working as he ground his teeth. She went to him, very conscious of all the curious eyes upon them, and touched his shoulder lightly. He looked at her and there was a hurricane brewing on his face. Tara gestured down the hallway and they walked away from the waiting staff so they could have a little privacy. She grabbed the edges of his cut and leaned into him.

"Please go with them Jax. I'll be okay," she pleaded. "But if you have a closed head injury, we need to know now."

"No. I'm not doing it." He said stubbornly, shaking the head in question. "I'm fine and I'm not leaving. I don't care how calm you sound right now. If things don't look good…" He looked away from her and couldn't seem to finish his sentence.

 _Oh._ Understanding filled her. It wasn't about the scan, it was about the sonogram. He wanted to be with her if it turned out the baby was no longer viable. Shame, hot and thick, poured onto her shoulders, and trickled down to pool in her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Oh God, he'd hate her if he knew she came _this_ close to aborting their baby. What the fuck was she thinking?

"Jax, I think the baby's okay. I really do. We're just looking for confirmation," she fibbed, and Tara almost believed it. Admitting her own worries wasn't going to get him any closer to the CT scanner.

His eyes narrowed, while his mouth opened into a cynical little half smile. It was the face he always wears right before he calls bullshit on her. That look pierces her. It makes her squirm and look away even when she’s telling him the truth, and when she's hiding something, or downplaying her own panic, like she was in the hallway, it can be unbearable.

Tara knows Jax didn't see any of Abel's sonograms, and with the assault charges pending, this might be his only shot to see one of this baby. She decided she could deal with her panic for a little while longer if it meant she could stall for him. Her hand slid up to his face and she ran her thumb along his jaw line.

"We'll wait for you. I promise."

"Can you do that?" He still looked skeptical.

"I think I can hold them off." She glanced down at herself. "I'm covered in bio-hazards. I'll demand a shower." She moved even closer to him. "Please Jax. Do this for me." After a moment, he nodded.

It's definitely not the worst deal she's ever made. Soap has never smelled so much like happiness, and now she and Jax can see the baby together. Tara wanted to be the one to tell him about the baby. Needed to glimpse his first reaction, that small impulse of either joy or panic before his face locked into whatever emotion he wanted her to see. But Gemma couldn't have kept her secret once the club got word she was taken. Jax needed to know exactly what was at stake.

Really, what was she thinking? They aren't like Lyla and Opie. They didn’t just meet. Tara knows Jax. She feels like she can trace the contours of his soul almost as easily as she could her own. And he's nothing like Kohn. Even when she and Jax are broken, it's not like the first time she was pregnant. Tara rinses her hair while she drifts back to the day she made the decision to cut ties with Joshua forever.

Joshua doesn't start out scary. He’s attentive and chivalrous, and even if she thinks he’s probably a little too old for her, there is something that feels almost thrillingly taboo about dating someone in law enforcement after her history with Jax and the club. He doesn’t start out crazy, but the controlling behavior grows that way, in small, reasonable, deceptive increments. The neediness, the overwhelming attention to her personal habits, develops an edge and he hurts her… twice.

The first time he pushes her back against a wall and backhands her. He bloodies her lip and bruises her arms. Later that night, he sobs his apology, and manages to wrap his violent regrets, and her own well observed faults, in a bouquet of guilt to place at her feet. The second time it's worse, she has to miss work to cover up the damage he does to her face, and there's no apology that can fix what he’s done. Tara changes her locks and buys a package of bullets. It's a bitter pill that her ATF boyfriend, the one who insisted she needed a weapon and the one who pushed through her permit, is the person she's planning on shooting with her newly loaded gun.

Tara has known she's pregnant for a week, and has been to two different police stations seeking a restraining order, when he hides in the stairwell of her apartment building. He barrels up behind her as she's turning the lock and forces his way into her home. Tara's not sure why he bothers with the rush attack. She knows the lock change doesn't keep him out. Her books, her music, and her underwear never seem to stay where she puts them.

Kohn knocks her down, straddles her, and pins her hands underneath her hips, and holds them there with his knees. He leans over her, bringing his face close to hers, and he smiles.

“We’re meant to be together, Tara.” He says, and his voice is light and pleasant, until it switches to a gently chiding tone. “I can’t believe I have to keep explaining this to you, silly goose. For such a smart girl, you sure have a hard time understanding some things.”

Tara doesn't want him to see how scared she is, doesn't want him to see her cry. The utter disconnect of his face gets to her though. The wrongness of it is chilling. He's calm, happy even, as his hands slither under her clothes to pinch the tender flesh of her torso. And he tells her she's being dramatic and overreacting, when the tears spill over onto her cheeks.

Somehow, using every skill she has, she talks him into leaving that night, by making promises she has no intention of keeping. The next day she goes to a third precinct, and when met with the expected skepticism, she lifts her shirt and shows the officer the dozen purple bruises dotting her body. She gets her restraining order, and that day she realizes she will never be free of Kohn if she has his baby. She'll have to move off of the planet to escape him. Tara makes the appointment, and while it's not an easy decision, it's the right one.

That thrill of dating a federal officer comes back to haunt her, as he uses his access to databases and surveillance equipment to continue to control and stalk her. Of course he finds out about the abortion, and it only makes him angrier. He deems it her greatest betrayal of his love.

Tara has to run, get the hell out of Chicago because she's pretty certain he's working himself up to do something drastic. She's afraid Kohn’s outrage at her unwillingness to belong to him, will paint him into a corner where he sees no other option but to kill her. Tara's certain that's where he's heading when he shows up in Charming. But it doesn't go that way because Jax ends Kohn for her.

Joshua toys with Jax, taunts him, and stomps all over his territory. Too smug or crazy to understand, as he builds the bomb inside Jax's head, just how short Jax's fuse really is when it comes to her. Joshua references their history, obsesses about it, but he doesn't really understand it. In the end it's an insult, a slur –whore- that sets Jax off. It snaps his head to the side, his face screwing up. He splatters the contents of Josh's head all over her room before the last of his gleeful taunts can finish echoing off of her walls.

Then in her gratitude, her horror, and in her overwhelming relief she kisses him. She doesn't mean to. It just sort of happens and it leads to something she and Jax will probably never fully talk about. Tara feels pulled out of time and space, trapped between the past and the present, between the dead man on the floor and the man in her arms who has haunted her for over a decade. His hands are rougher, more calloused, and yet cleverer than they used to be. His shoulders have filled out and there are new lines on his face that she wants to greet with her fingertips, but the taste and touch of his lips are familiar. The heavy tang of blood hangs in the air and it's distracting to Tara, makes her crane her neck to try and look at Kohn, but Jax pulls her back to him with a kiss to her neck.

"Don't look at him." Jax says moving above her and Tara suddenly realizes they're naked and they're going to do this. When they’re joined together, she feels the chaos within her go still. _God, she's missed him._ And she's doesn't even think of Kohn again for a very long while.

Later she wonders what it says about her that she sleeps with Jax while Kohn is working his way towards room temperature. Has trouble looking in the mirror the next morning. Lately though, she's been wondering what it says about her that she doesn't really care anymore. It takes her awhile to admit it to herself, but she's not sorry he's dead, and what she takes from that night, what she holds onto, is that at one of her most dire moments, Jax took her mind elsewhere, held her together, and kept her from fragmenting into brittle damaged shards.

What she doesn't expect is to be able to repay the favor.

There are some nights, after Donna dies, as they are navigating their new life together, when Jax is different. He's serious, troubled, and not remotely playful or teasing. They are almost always late nights and she's already half asleep. He walks from the front door into the bathroom, and shows up in bed minutes later, warm and damp from the shower. She rolls to greet him and before the words have left her mouth, he's fallen upon her, his kisses hungry and insistent. It's like he's looking to consume her and be consumed by her.

It's not until the night he won't meet her eyes and she finds the bloody bandanna in his jeans, when he confesses to shooting yet another man in the head that she realizes what's different about those times with him. Those are the nights when he's struggling with his choices, with his anger, with who he is as a human being. And she loves that he struggles. That it's not easy for him to kill, even if the man deserved to die because he shot Donna and devastated Opie's family. That what he's looking for is solace, like they found in eachother the night they killed Kohn.

On nights like this she begins to anticipate what he needs and joins him in the bathroom. Upset men can be very tricky. Tara's learned the hard way that they don't like to feel pitied or condescended, and it can painfully blow back on her if the comfort she offers is unwanted. So she's wary the first time she goes to him, but it's Jax standing there in conflict, not her father, not Joshua, nor any of the other jackasses she dated after she left Charming. It's Jax, and while he can't always articulate his feelings, he's never denied her access to them. Never, not once, and she feels like, whatever the result, she has to at least try with him.

He doesn't turn around as she drops her clothes to the floor. He stays with his forehead pressed against the tile wall while she climbs in behind him. The air is steamy and warm, but the hot water hitting her in splashes around his body is too much of a contrast and her skin floods with goose bumps. She reaches out her hands and carefully rubs them up his back. The muscles under her fingers are rigid and she waits to see if this is what he wants from her.

He blows his breath out and some of the tension leaves his body. Tara moves closer to him, bringing her hands down to his hips. She leans forward and kisses one of his shoulder blades. She loves how his skin feels against her mouth when it's covered in droplets of hot water. She runs her trail of kisses across his back to the other shoulder and Jax straightens up to reach for her wrists. She wraps her arms around him and hugs him tight while his fingers entwine with hers.

They stay that way for awhile before he moves her hands lower on his body, down to his cock, and Tara smiles against his back. He turns to face her, guiding her back against the wall, his hand slipping down her thighs, and hoisting one of her legs up and over the crook of his arm. Tara has one foot on the slippery shower floor, and one arm wrapped around his neck, while the palm of her other hand is sliding against the smooth tile trying to brace herself. She's thinking for the fiftieth time that maybe Jax should just install a pull up bar in the shower so she has a solid handhold, _and fuck all the taunting things Gemma will have to say about that_ , when Jax nips at her chin. She can see that the fire in his eyes has gentled.

"Thank you." He whispers against her lips before his mouth closes over hers.

Sometimes, she gets it wrong. Some nights when he heads straight for the shower he's not struggling, he's just dirty. Those times he turns and grins at her through the fogged up shower door, before opening it a crack to watch her undress, his anticipation plain in his face.

But on the nights when the battle raging inside him is so fierce she can almost feel it through his skin, and his fingers flex against the tile, he always waits for her to come to him. And as these nights grow more frequent, as the club's business leaks all over the rest of their lives, Tara knows there's something big coiling in Jax that he's keeping from her. She wants to know what it is, suspicious it's deeper than Jax pushing Clay for change in SAMCRO, but she's hiding Gemma's rape from him and so she leaves it be. She offers him understanding without demanding answers, even though they've promised each other total disclosure. For his part, Jax allows her to soothe him, lets her ease him back to center for a short time before the next day twists him up again. At least until she finds herself frozen, unable to act, and she fails Abel so badly.

Tara's arms have grown tired and she can't get all of the conditioner out of her hair. She leans against the side of the stall for a moment before pulling the stool into the shower and collapsing down upon it. This isn't defeat, she tells herself. She doesn't need the support. She can stand perfectly fine on her own. It's just easier to soap her legs sitting down.

That day, after the questioning, after they've led her past Half-Sack's sheet covered body, Chibs finds her curled up in a chair in Hale's office. She sits up immediately when she sees him, begging him to tell her they somehow caught up with Cameron, but Chibs' mouth is a long grim line when he shakes his head no. He offers to take her to Jax, who is back at the clubhouse.

The place is empty when they get there. Chibs tells her the whole club is out trying to find Abel and hide Gemma. Opie comes out of Jax's dorm room as they approach. He looks at her for a moment and then pulls her to his giant chest. Tara's surprised, Opie doesn't hug her very often, but then she sinks into him and tries really hard to keep herself in one piece.

"We gotta go. He's in bed. " Opie says gently and he kisses the top of her head. He pulls away from her and looks her in the eyes. "You have to take care of him. Okay?" Tara nods and goes to find Jax.

The covers are rumpled and pulled down, but Jax is not in his bed. She calls out for him, but there is no answer. The dorm room is not that big. There are only so many places he can be. She walks into the bathroom and that's where she finds him, sitting fully dressed on the floor of the shower, one hand curled around a bottle of whiskey. His face is covered in hectic red patches and his nose is running. She can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest as a sob breaks through, and he knocks the back of his head repeatedly against the shower wall.

Tara rushes to him, without thinking, without caution, kneeling beside him and reaching out to hold him. But even in this state, Jax is quicker than her. His hands shoot up and grab her by the wrists before she can make contact. He turns his face away from her and looks at the wall.

"Please Tara…" he starts, and he sounds like he's been swallowing cement. "Don't touch me. Just… just… go away." He lets her wrists go, but there's a bit of a shove in the way he does it, just in case she didn't get the hint from what he said. Tara does what he asks. She gets up and leaves him be, trying to ignore the extra layer of spreading pain his words punched through her body. She’s sure he blames her for Abel’s abduction, which makes sense, because she blames herself.

Jax doesn't speak to her again for three long, lonely days.

She barely has any contact with the guys, and she never sees Clay, who is frantically trying to stamp out the fires engulfing his family from two different directions. She mostly sees Miles, a hang around who must be in charge of bringing them food every couple of hours. Jax won't eat any of it, and only seems to move from his spot in the shower in the brief moments when she leaves the dorm room to call Hale or Unser and beg for updates, or during the scraped together minutes of sleep she finds alone in his bed. Somehow, he ferrets out his back up stash of weed from the dresser drawer and at some point he gets a new bottle of Jack Daniels from the clubhouse bar.

There's a lot of time to think, to anguish about Abel, and worry about the coming baby. She also has a lot of time to find her resolve. She's not letting Jax do this to her, him freezing her out. The only way through this nightmare is them together, as a team. So she keeps talking to him, though he doesn't respond, and she digs in her heels refusing to budge from his life. She keeps digging in her heels through so much of his bullshit, until he goes for the one thing she said she couldn't forgive.

Tara knows he doesn't even like Ima. Sure she's pretty, in a spray-on tan sort of way, and she's certainly available, but there is always plenty of "pretty and available" hanging around SAMCRO. And Ima? She's mean and she's stupid. Jax has never tolerated dumb bitches, even when they were teenagers. After she left he married Wendy, who has always been complicated. Who is big hearted, tragic and self destructive, but never mean and never stupid.

She knows he set her up. He wanted her to find him naked and tousled with a porn star lounging in his t-shirt, just so the knife could be wedged in that much deeper. Just so she could understand he was serious about the break up. He picked Ima to be purposely cruel. She called him on it, and he didn’t deny it.

And as much as that hurts, she needs that to be his motive. It's less crushing than the other option. A worry it took her days to even willingly examine. A notion so private that she could never speak it out loud.

What if he was so upset when he left the hospital, he sought out solace from Ima, a woman he doesn't even like. If he can do that with her, he could do it with anyone. All those tender, passionate moments they shared… after Kohn, in the shower, in their bed. Tara's humiliated by her own naiveté in assuming that intensity was about them and their connection. What if it was never about them? What if it was always about him exorcising his demons, his unique way of banishing the bad shit from his head? What if the act is what is important to Jax, not the person he shares it with?

Tara folds in on herself, collapses down onto her thighs, letting the spray of the water hit her back, but the tears won't come. It occurs to her that she might in fact be too tired to cry. That it would be too great an effort to break down. She feels so stupid. She held onto those times with him like they were a lighthouse guiding them through the panting, eager darkness that constantly surrounds them. But if the light in all of the dark is an illusion, or a delusion, then what's the point of this life? If there's nothing higher, deeper, more significant than sex and death, why is she even here?

Fuck, but Tara knows that's just her feet talking. Her running shoes are trying to whittle her labyrinth of choices down to one path, the quickest route out of Charming. But she's not running, she's already decided that.

Maybe it's good this last piece of naiveté, this now tattered cloak of denial is in question. It's a young and romantic notion that all of their sins could be absolved, or somehow lessened because of their love for one another. Is he less of a killer because he lets her hold him? Is she less of a killer because so far it's always been self-defense? What she needs to do is stand the hell up and keep moving, because she's still got a dead woman's blood to scrub out of her nail beds. She still needs to make sure her babies are healthy. She and Jax still need to talk about all of this and she doesn't have any more time today to soul search. Tara doesn’t know how much time she has with Jax before the bail hearing. It can't be more than a few days.

 _Shit, what day is it?_ It bothers her that she cannot remember precisely how much time she spent under Salazar's thumb. It bothers her less that she's pleased Jax ripped him open from hip to heart.

Tara has taken too many showers like this one in the months she's been home. She has washed too many murky viscous secrets down various drains. And while she doesn't think it will ever become a casual practice, this cleansing doesn't hold the same horror it did the morning she washed Joshua from her body for the last time.

Tara reaches down, and though the spray is turning her chest and arms red, she twists the handle, and makes the water even hotter.


End file.
